Why Being a Contemplative Matters Right Now
10/13/20
Dear friend,
It was such a gift to introduce you to A Contemplative Light last week. I heard from a number of you who affirmed the new direction I laid out of focusing on the contemplative path and how we might continue living into it at this time.
I thought today we could pause and consider why being a contemplative matters right now. Why does this posture and path make a difference? Does it make a difference?
I'd like to tackle these questions on the micro and macro level today.
First, the micro, which is your own life. What difference does the contemplative posture make in your day-to-day life? Does it make a difference?
I'd love to hear your answer to this question.
My answer to it is yes, and here's why.
When I'm tending to the contemplative stance in my own life, I find myself moving through my days with a kind of fluidity. There's a calmness to my steps, likely because I've allowed myself to move at the speed of soul, rather than the speed of culture or of ego.
The decisions I'm making are being made with intentional discernment. I'm paying attention. I'm listening. I'm moving forward with the wisdom that comes from noticing my invitations and saying yes to them and no to others.
My feet are on solid ground. I'm not buffeted about, tossed here and there by the many voices that cry out from every direction, imploring me to "Look over here! Pay attention to this! Do it this way! Care about this too!"
My heart is at peace. I know I can't do everything, nor am I expected to. But I'm bringing intention to what is mine to do and what presents itself to me, and I'm listening for my authentic response. Everything else, I trust to grace.
Now, I don't live this way all the time, and I'm guessing you don't either. That's why we call it a posture, a practice, a path. It's something we continually do, continually take up again, continue to remember and bring back to center.
But it matters and makes a difference because it allows us to navigate our daily, micro lives from a place of alignment, trust, peace, and authentic response. It also invites those around us to do the same.
What about the macro level?
Does living as a contemplative person matter to what's happening in our world, on the whole of this globe?
I'm just idealistic enough to say yes, and here's why.
A few months ago, I named out loud a five-year vision for the online community I lead called the Light House. That vision was:
5,000 women walking around in the world, confident in who they are and what they're being invited to contribute to this world. They got there through self-reflection, discernment, and a deeply supportive experience of community.
Now, I cannot tell you how many times that phrase 5,000 women has been named back to me by community members since the vision was shared with them. It illuminates the power of a collective. It gives us a feeling of "We're in this together." It's that feeling Seth Godin describes as "People like us do things like this."
One reason the contemplative path matters in the macro is that it buoys each of us up in the micro when we know we're in this with many others around the globe.
But then I have to ask: How does it make a difference beyond bringing us together and encouraging us forward? How does it go beyond us? Does it go beyond us?
I read a book by Richard Rohr a few years ago called Dancing Standing Still, and it was the first book for which I ever wrote a public review. In my review, I said:
Perhaps what I most appreciate about this book is its thesis that such a contemplative stance actually moves you closer to the world than further away from it.
As Rohr says, "To be contemplative, we have to have a slight distance from the world—we have to allow time for withdrawal from business as usual, for meditation, for going into what Jesus calls 'our private room.' However, in order for this not to become escapism, we have to remain quite close to the world at the same time, loving it, feeling its pain and its joy as our pain and our joy."
To not be moved to this compassionate place in our contemplative stance is not true contemplation, Rohr says. It's an encouragement that echoes the teachings of Thomas Merton and is so welcome and needed in this contemporary time.
Our contemplative stance takes us closer to the world as we let our hearts be engaged by its needs and our unique invitations to move toward them.
I also truly believe the contemplative stance is a more human stance than is on offer in our world and becomes, simply by our living it in larger and larger numbers together, an increasing witness and model and invitation for others to come back home to their own humanity.
When we slow down, when we pause, when we notice and pay attention to what's happening around us and inside us, when we listen to our authentic invitations and take the time to respond to them with intention—in all these ways of being, we remain in touch with the world, with our personal humanity, and with our connection to the Holy. We are living in sync with life at its most realistic, humane, compassionate, and pure.
We are not robots. We are not superhuman. We are not inconsequential.
We matter. And so does the way we live our lives.
Thank you for being on the contemplative path with me.
Yours at the speed of soul,
Christianne